usual.

The decision worried Michael considerably, but as they both turned out
to be hens and laid twenty-three eggs between them next spring, it
ceased to bother him any more.

The Miss Marrows' School and Kindergarten, kept by Miss Marrow and Miss
Caroline Marrow assisted by Miss Hewitt and Miss Hunt, struck Michael as
a very solemn establishment indeed. Although its outward appearance was
merely that of an ordinary house somewhat larger than others on account
of its situation at the corner of Fairfax Terrace, it contained inside a
variety of scholastic furniture that was bound to impress the novice.

At twenty minutes past nine on the first day of the autumn term, Nurse
and Michael stood before a brass plate inscribed

+-------------------------+
| THE MISSES MARROW |
| SCHOOL AND KINDERGARTEN |
+-------------------------+

while a bell still jangled with the news of their arrival. They were
immediately shown into a very small and very stuffy room on the right of
the front door--a gloomy little room, because blinds of coloured beads
shut out the unscholastic world. This room was uncomfortably crowded
with little girls taking off goloshes and unlacing long brown boots,
with little boys squabbling over their indoor shoes, with little girls
chatting and giggling and pushing and bumping, with little boys
shouting and quarrelling and kicking and pulling. A huddled and heated
knot of nurses and nursemaids tried to help their charges, while every
minute more little boys and more little girls and more bigger girls
pushed their way in and made the confusion worse. In the middle of the
uproar Miss Marrow herself entered and the noise was instantly lulled.

"The new boys will wait in here and the new girls will _quietly_ follow
Helen Hungerford down the passage to Miss Caroline's room. Nurses need
not wait any longer."

Then a bell vibrated shrilly. There was a general scamper as the nurses
and the nursemaids and the old boys and the old girls hurried from the
room, leaving Michael and two other boys, both about two years older
than himself, to survey each other with suspicion. The other boys
finding Michael beneath the dignity of their notice spoke to each other,
or rather the larger of the two, a long-bodied boy with a big head and
vacant mouth, said to the other, a fidgety boy with a pink face, a
frog-like smile and very tight knickerbockers:

"I say, what's your name?"

The pink-faced boy g